The Song Stone
by michael1812
Summary: River Song is a student at the University of Mars, where she spends her time ignoring the words of her teachers and joking around as she dreams of the extraordinary...


Her eyes reflected in the glass window, her face bathing in the soft, red light of the blinding sunset.

She looked away and looked upon the uncomfortable looks of the people around her.

She always enjoyed the process of depressurization, no matter how much the others complained.

No wait, it was _because_ the others complained so much.

They all hated the hours they spent cooped up together in this small, white room, with the same group who joined them on their study assignment in the quarries of Mount Shelby.

But not River Song.

She loved to watch the annoyed and frustrated looks on the faces of her classmates as she sat in the red light which reflected upon her.

She could see the rocky, red landscape of Mars through the small, round window beside her and opposite her at the other side of the round room.

The red mountains and canyons turned dark and filled with shadows as the sun slowly set on Mars; it's high peaks shined as the big yellow star's last rays of light hit the mountaintops for the last time that day.

Their backs were aching, their eyebrows were sore of looking angry for hours and even their teacher wasn't feeling very well after this long day stuck inside this small room, hoping all their efforts in the Martian quarries had been enough.

They held the helmet's of their hot uniforms within their aching hands.

"Stop your whining," River spoke as she stood up, smiling through all their worries and pains, although she couldn't help but stretch her own aching back before she did.

Everyone was still sitting on the ground, waiting for the alarm to sound; the twins, Arthur and Mercutio, had been nagging and teasing all the girls ever since they set foot in this chamber four hours ago, but now they looked up at River, who searched for her watch underneath her red spacesuit.

"It's time to leave, don't you think, Mr. Pelt?" she asked, without glancing once at her balding, sweating teacher with the small, round glasses.

River checked her wrist watch and before Mr. Pelt could say anything the doors of the chamber swung open (accompanied by a gust of smoke) and she smiled.

She hopped across the doorstep with an elegant step, before her classmates even realised they could stand up, and she arrogantly smiled as she awaited the twin's evaluation.

"You don't impress us with your magic, wicked one!" Arthur exclaimed happily.

"Your incredible time-keeping device does not frighten us, oh eternal trickster!" Mercutio spoke loudly.

"I'll be sure to think of something more clever next time!" River yelled back at the pair as she entered the University of Mars, carrying her helmet under her arm.

Stepping through the smoke River was the first one to be greeted back into the University, the place she had been sarcastically calling home for the past 18 months now.

A big, bushy red beard attached to a face was almost shoved into her face, until she realised there was a man who was trying to shake her hand.

"Welcome back!" he spoke friendly and River smiled back, although her feeling of joy slowly faded.

"Mr. Benneton," River spoke politely as she shook the hand of her Geology teacher.

Another colleague of his, a mister Grayne River only knew vaguely (he taught Geography she believed), approached River and congratulated her on a successful mission.

"It was an excursion, Mr. Grayne," River corrected the wrinkled man with the glass eye. "Not a mission. We're only students."

"Right," Mr. Grayne spoke nervously, before continuing to shake her classmates' hands.

River and the rest of her class started to unzip their uncomfortable spacesuits and boots, all covered in red dust.

River watched how Mr. Pelt embraced the arms of his colleagues and friends.

"And?" Mr. Pelt asked excited.

"Incredible!" Mr. Benneton spoke and his hands were all over the place. "The sample you brought with you was nothing like we've ever seen before!"

'It's amazing how all these years the stone remained in such a perfect condition!"

'It's beautiful!" Mr. Grayne interrupted.

River shook her head as she curled up her suit and boots and pushed them into her locker, which whizzed shut with a careful bang.

The twin's saw her and smiled.

"Who found it?"

Mr. Pelt's eyes searched the group of students and found…

"River…" he tried to say, until he was interrupted.

"#SONG!#" the twins sang together in perfect harmony and the entire group laughed.

"#RIVER SONG#" Mercutio sang in a lower voice as Arthur maintained his high note.

Mr. Pelt was not amused.

"Cut it out, boys," River spoke with a faint, yet honest smile on her face, hiding the fact she loved their jokes.

They laughed and nodded at her as a sign of agreement.

River laughed as she put on her jacket and left the locker-room (the scientists were still talking to each other and gazing at her back; she saw this when she gazed into the mirror just before she left the room).

She laughed at the scientists who were still musing about possibilities and a beautiful, silver stone.

River knew exactly how they felt.

Herself, she seemed to be glowing from inside; she had never felt this content, this happy, in a long time.

She was lying awake in her dormitory, in her bed, that night, gazing at the ceiling, reminded of the dark cavern where she found the silver stone.

She wondered what the results would be of the analysis when the scientists would finally take the rock out of the machine.

What magnificent substances it might contain, what history and past.

She remembered seeing the stone, seeing it sparkle for the first time as a single, lone ray of sunlight shined down into the cavern and upon that patch of red dust.

Buried beneath it lay the stone, covered in red dust which she cleaned with the sleeve of her white suit.

A beautiful silver stone, the last sparkling bit of dust, one crazy diamond, of what once used to be a mighty rock.

An asteroid which crashed into the surface of Mars many centuries ago.

Digging that stone from out of the red dust, seeing it glisten in broad daylight for the first time in years, centuries, millennia, or even forever, as she held it in her hand, made River realise that this had been one of the best moments of her life.

One moment she is laying wide awake, lost in thoughts, on her bed, then the next moment an incredible yawn stirs her daydreams and the images on the ceiling, reminding her of her own mortality and desire to sleep.

She tugged her sheets around her so the cold could not get to her.

She closed her eyes and cursed the approaching morning, which would come so soon, for she had to get up early.

She always had to get up early.

Tomorrow was just another day, another ordinary day, although she never stopped hoping for more.

She dreamed of extraordinary things that time, as night spread through every cell of River's body and she fell asleep for several minutes, or at least that's how she felt it when she sat in the classroom the following morning, listening to the ecstatic voices she heard the day before, as if she hadn't gone to sleep at all.

"Extraordinary!" Mr. Benneton exclaimted. "Fascinating! Don't you see what this means?"

River Song's own excitement concerning the silver stone vanished as she witnessed for a second time how the scientists seemed to worship this shiny piece of rock.

"According to Mr. Pelt's scans and my calculations," Mr. Benneton continued as he spoke to the entire class. "The _Song Stone_ was part of a much larger comet of asteroid. I presume it was the Sherlock-comet which crashed into Mars some 200 years ago…"

They had delightfully named the stone after her.

"The comet crashed upon impact and shattered into a million pieces, creating a beautiful crater, and leaving only this behind as proof of its encounter with the red planet and downfall and defeat."

"How poetic," Mr. Pelt spoke.

"Why thank you," Mr. Benneton said.

The students were amused by their teacher's enthusiasm and weird behaviour, and they laughed whenever Mr. Benneton seemed to hop up and down as he spoke of the discovered stone.

His hand seemed to tremble every time he pointed at the digital black board behind him.

River, on the other hand, was not amused.

She yawned and longed for her comfortable cushion and bed.

She couldn't remember the last time she felt honestly excited about any class, any lesson or activity.

She had just sat here, listening to the pompous words of scientists and underpaid teachers who expect them to memorize 50 year old books within a matter of days, and she never remembered a single word they said to her.

In fact, words were wasted on her.

The true enthusiasm and enlightenment of the discovery of the silver stone had vanished so quickly; trying to get it back was like catching smoke with one's bare hands.

A pointless activity she was too tired to repeat.

The repetitive lessons were dull and mostly depriving her from the many hours of sleep she could still be having.

It was only the jokes of the twins which kept her awake and the rare moments of hilarity and brilliance whenever she had a chance to intelligently and subtly insult a teacher or subvert their authority and get away with it.

It hadn't happened that many times yet, for River couldn't find the openings she needed for such moments of brilliance; the circumstances have to be completely perfect, just as timing and subject and in the end it all depends upon the teacher's mood.

However, despite all this, the twins had still noticed her and created a personal vendetta against her which only lasted up to a respectful level.

River was grateful that they were intelligent enough to realise comedy is only comedy, and it should be fun and no-one should get hurt.

She's had too many bad experiences with bullies already, anti-social psychos who just don't realise the universe does not revolve around them.

River once managed to get through to one of these bullies, through the medium of a closed fist.

Another moment to remember!

"Miss Song?"

River turned her gaze away from the window and looked at the scientists, her teachers, below, with a look on her face of someone who had just woken up from a deep sleep.

The trio seemed almost tiny from the seat in the back of the large room where she was sitting, but she could still tell how Mr. Pelt was playing with the digital pen in his hands.

He was waiting to mark a spot on the digital map of the Martian canyons behind him.

"Where-if I might ask- did you find the stone?" Mr. Benneton asked.

The rest of her class slowly gazed at River, who sat alone in the back of the class.

Mr. Grayne put his arms around his back, not expecting the extraordinary answer River was about to give them.

She smiled before she did so, picturing their shocked faces in her head as she breathed deeply.

"I found the stone in the Canyon of the Rising Eagle," River answered. "Sir."

The looks on their faces was just like she had predicted.

The twins laughed and everyone looked at the distraught face of Mr. Pelt.

"But that's way beyond the safe zone! You weren't allowed to go there!" he spoke. "Wait, if this is some kind of joke…"

"Are you telling us the truth?" Mr. Benneton asked.

"She's a liar!" Arthur exclaimed. "No wait! I am!"

"Should I describe the location to you?" River asked.

She smiled.

River's father had been a teacher.

He taught History and as far as she could remember he told her stories about whales and apples, lions and satellites, butterflies and hurricanes, fire and peanut butter.

He always made her laugh with the most unexpected tales, weird and amazing, true and false, absurd and brilliant, hilarious and wise.

She was reminded of him that very night, as she was brushing her teeth.

She gazed into the mirror as white foam slipped from the corner of her mouth, and she froze.

She looked like him.

She had come to resemble her father more than she had ever realised.

She gazed into her eyes, her father's eyes…

Then she looked up.

The memories of her father faded away as quickly as they had appeared in front of her mind.

River spat out the foam and saliva as she started listening to what was out there, in the darkness.

She froze and gazed at a random point on the wall, a loose brick, and she listened to the snoring, sleeping dormitory, until she heard it.

She dropped her wet toothbrush on to the slippery floor as quickly as she had wiped her mouth on a towel and hurried downstairs.

She knew no-one was allowed to roam the corridors of the University at night, but she didn't care.

She ran downstairs, down a mighty staircase which creaked under her every step.

The sound was approaching, becoming louder and louder and River feared it would soon wake up the entire University with its familiar noise.

She didn't care about the eyes of those which monitored the hallways and the alarms and detectors they might've installed.

In the kitchen, a tall, wooden blue box appeared out of nowhere, fading into existence accompanied by a loud noise and an extremely bright light.

The blue box turned solid and the noises stopped.

The bright light faded into the darkness of the kitchen.

Now the blue box stood at the centre of the kitchen, as if it had always stood there for years and years, surrounded by dirty pots, pans and cutlery.

Darkness returned to the kitchen along with silence, and it was impossible to see anything in the small room.

Suddenly a sound was heard, a creaking noise as if someone opened a large cabinet or door, and for a split second the kitchen was filled with pure, green light.

A cat's eye would have seen the dark silhouette of a man inside the kitchen, stepping out of the blue box's shadow, muttering something to himself as he reached into his pocket for a strange device, before aiming it at the light above his head.

With the flick of a switch, a buzz and a brief, blue light, the light turned on, revealing a tall, skinny man in a black suit with blue stripes, with long sideburns on the sides of his face, great hair, a purple tie and white trainers.

"That's more like it!" he exclaimed as he flipped his device in the air, before catching it and swiftly returning it to its original place.

"Ah!"

His eyes gleamed happily and his mouth widened into a big, white smile as he noticed the bowl of fruit standing on the counter in front of him.

He played with the peach in his hands, laughed when he grabbed the banana, groaned when he touched the pear (and he quickly wiped his hand on his suit) and he finally settled happily for a green apple, from which he took a mighty bite.

"Doctor!" a voice yelled and footfalls approached the kitchen in a hurry.

The man quickly swallowed his piece of apple.

Then someone pushed against the door and fiddled with the handle, until it swung open.

The man's eyes widened as he gazed upon the young woman who stood in the doorway, gasping for breath.

"Where the hell have you been?" River cried.

She had to restrain herself from smiling at the grinning Time Lord…


End file.
